Surrealism

[As you’ve seen by now, we like to tell stories. What follows is one of our most exciting stories to date! And yes, it’s completely true. Many people question its authenticity because of how surreal it is, and we’ve included the original email as both validation of our tale, and inspiration for you. The impossible is not so far-fetched!]

Raconteur has a different kind of mindset, and it can be blamed entirely on Cajun culture and the warmth of Lafayette, Louisiana. While the entire team is not here, we’ve all fallen victim to the warmth that this city is built on (and we’re not just speaking in literal terms). As such, we make it a point to tell people that we respect that we admire them.

Nicholas takes this as a personal mission and is known to do it very frequently, somehow catching the attention of very well-known people in the process. One of these was Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox.

Yes, the person in charge of Xbox.

Nicholas wrote him an email thanking him for his contributions to the industry and spoke about how much respect he had for him and Xbox, and also included a link to our demo and press kit for Steam Greenlight (which was going on at the time).

Much to the entire group’s surprise, he responded within a day — saying that he watched the trailer, played the demo, and told us he needed to play more to build a better armada.

This stands in Raconteur history as one of the moments we knew that we were on the right path. Close Order is certainly not a mass-market game, yet the story of how we presented it was compelling enough to attract the attention of the head of Xbox! It should also be noted that this occurred less than two weeks before E3 2015, and Mr. Spencer was arguably one of the busiest individuals in the industry at that particular moment – yet he still had time for us.

We also received very kind words from our friends at Gearbox, who were eager to finally see our game moving closer to release. Randy Pitchford, the president of Gearbox Software, said, “Wow… really cool!” and generously tweeted about us. (Aaron also told Nicholas that he was impressed. Nick says this was his favorite piece of feedback about the game.)

These stories helped us gain even more momentum, and we were greenlit shortly afterward near the end of June.

Few moments were more impactful than these interactions with our industry, and it solidified our resolve to tell stories.